Paper clips of several types are known in the prior art and are in widespread use. One disadvantage with prior art clips is that while they adequately serve to retain together two or more papers, they do not have a writing surface. Traditional paper clips, for example, cannot be used to post notes or label one or more documents.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,384 discloses a paper clip with writing surfaces on the front and back surfaces of the clip. The concept of the invention of U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,384 is to have the paper clip made of acrylic resin in which the front and back surfaces of the paper clip are utilized for writing notes thereon. However the clip disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,384 has certain disadvantages, including the inconvenience that the inscribable surface area is dependent on the overall size of the clip. Accordingly, the clip must be relatively large to accommodate any type of inscription. Additionally, the large size of the clip and the material the clip must be formed from greatly increase the cost of manufacturing and. distributing the clips. The size of the clips also makes it burdensome to store them, whether on a desk, a drawer, or the like, and unnecessarily increases to the bulk of documents bound by the clip.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,186,508 discloses a paper clip adapted to be used as an advertising medium or a means of identification. However, the inscribable area in the clip disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,186,508 is limited by the width and length of the convolutions of the paper clip.